


the crash is a heaven for a sinner like me

by MadeFromDarkWater



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 10:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6800008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadeFromDarkWater/pseuds/MadeFromDarkWater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because it's finals, we still don't know if Delphine is alive, and I needed some closure so I gave it to myself</p>
<p>A reworking of season 4, where Delphine is alive and Cosima actually gets to be happy</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Delphine

**Author's Note:**

> written by a tired college kid, so all mistakes are mine. Also I haven't taken French since grade school, so those mistakes are on me too.

The bullet cuts through her easily, tearing through tissue and organ like a knife through warm butter. And yes, she feels pain, but mostly, she’s just relieved that it’s over.

She’s been fighting for so long: for Cosima, with Cosima, about Cosima. She’s pretty sure she’s lost Cosima completely, so maybe that’s why dying isn’t as hard as she thought it’d be. Because really, she’s just so tired. The dreams she’s wanted and fought for are dead, but not because of the bullet lodged in the liver. They’re dead because Delphine is a fool, a cynical cold fool who truly believed that she could separate love and work. Impossible, she thought later, when she realized she loved the work, loved Cosima, so completely that the mere thought of her made her feel like she was seeing clearly after being consumed in darkness.

But at least, Cosima will not be alone. She will have her sisters, and Shay. While the thought of Cosima with somebody else made her stomach turn, she knew that Shay was light, and good, and everything Cosima needed. Cosima will live. Delphine will die. So it goes.

So, as the blood drains out of her, staining the silk white blouse a dark shade of burgundy, Delphine decides that she will die. So she focuses her mind on the smell of almond perfume and patchouli incense. On crooked teeth smiles, cat eyed glasses, and the feeling of thin baby hairs at the base of her scalp as Delphine runs her fingers through them. She thinks of wine flavored kisses, and the feeling of fingers on skin, and she closes her eyes and waits.

* * *

           

She opens her eyes and smells chemicals and fear. Whiteness, bright and unyielding surrounds her. Certainly this is no heaven, so she must be in hell. Fitting, she thinks, if she is being experimented on. Divine repercussions.

 

Her vision starts to focus, and she sees two brunette figures sitting near her feet. A bed surfaces beneath her, starch and uncomfortable. Wires are everywhere, connecting her nose to the bed to a monitor that tracks her heartbeat.      

She’s not dead. She’s very much alive.        

A shot of pain runs through her liver. Yep, she’s alive.

A hand comes and rests on her shoulder, pushing her gently back into her mattress and telling her not to fight. She looks up frantically. How is she alive.

 

“Easy chicken. You just got out of surgery. There is no need to rip out your stiches” 

 

It’s Mrs. S, a woman who had always amazed Delphine for her strength and dedication to those she loves. Delphine’s actions had always seemed like a cheep imitation compared to the lengths Mrs. S went for the sisters. Delphine can’t help it, she begins to cry.

 

“Easy there. You’re okay. Well, you’re going to be at least. Marion found you in the parking lot painting the pavement with your blood” S says, thumbing her hand back at the other brunette in the room.

“You’re out of surgery.” Marion supplements “Straight through the liver, but nothing else. You’re going to be fine, assuming you don’t do anything stupid”

“Cos… Cosima?” the name tasting like acid and sunlight on her tongue.  

“She’s fine, love. Working on the cure right now”

"Does she know… about, about me?”

 

Marion stands, coming in between Delphine and S, and Delphine feels even the slightest bit of warmth that has returned to her body fall away.

 

“No, and until we know how deep this infiltration goes, it is safer for both of you if she doesn’t. You’ll stay here until you are stable enough to move, and then we’ll relocate you”

“You’re just, you’re just going to let her believe I’m dead?”

“It’s the only option. And I hope, Dr. Cormier, you will do as your told, if only for your own sake”

 

Delphine looks up at S, who returns a sobering look back

 

“She’s right love, it’s the only way to keep you both safe. But as soon as we can, we’ll bring her straight to you”

“So I don’t really have a choice”

 “No.”

 

But then again, Delphine has long passed the place where she’s ever had a choice. So she settles back into her bed and counts her breath, begging the tears to stop.

 

“Don’t worry love.” S says, squeezing her arm lightly “We take care of family. You bought them some much-needed time. We’ll return the favor”

 So she nods, thinks of almonds and kisses again, and allows herself to sleep.

* * *

 

 

They end up relocating her to her grandfather’s farmhouse in the hills of rural France. Technically it belongs to her younger cousin Cosette, a ballerina currently living in Barcelona that Delphine had not spoken to since her work at the DYAD started because they had nothing to talk about. But the layer of dust across everything shows that perhaps, Cosette had better things to do than tend to this falling ruin, leaving it open to Delphine.

 

“Groceries will be delivered once every week. If they don’t bring something you need, please let us know. If it is within reason, we will do our best to provide it”

 

Marion had come with her to her new home, though Delphine would have rather traveled alone. She’s still not steady on her feet, needing a cane to walk anymore than a few steps, but she’d rather suffer alone than with this somber, disheartening partner.

 

“You should also avoid going to town at all costs. We do not want to stir up unneeded suspicion”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Read, draw, bake, just stay alive long enough”

 

Marion drops her suitcase at the doorframe unceremoniously, before giving her a curt wave and leaving Delphine to herself.   With a few hobbling steps, she grabs her suitcase, packed not by her by S, and halls it to the bedroom. The zipper catches only slightly as she opens in, but the slight tug is enough for Delphine to want to throw the thing against a wall. She can’t though. She’s not even close to strong enough.

 

S has packed her some things, sweaters and jeans. None of her fancy, expensive work clothes that Felix used to salivate over. Just denim and wool and a cotton summer dress the color of cornflowers. It’s limited, but really, it’s all she needs. It’s not like she’s going anywhere or seeing anyone.

 

At the bottom of a suitcase is a book, _Origin of Species_. It’s Cosima’s old copy, with her name hastily written in loopy, slanted strokes. She wonders how S even got this book from Cosima. It is one of her favorites. She struggles with the weight of the book, and her shaky hands quickly betray her, and the book tumbles to the ground, spine cracking slightly. She bends down, frustrated by her inability to even hold this little part of Cosima without ruining it.

 

She picks up the book, watching as a piece of cardstock flutters out of the pages. She picks it up delicately, fingers drifting over the yellow edges.

 

It’s a note. With the same handwriting as the name on the top corner of the inside of the book jacket. Her heart jumps to her mouth

 

_Wanted to give you something to pass the time. I know it’s not some fancy French literature, but I thought you might want a piece of home with you._

_S told me what happened. I’m not mad. Please just work on getting better, okay? I don’t want to have to lose you again._

_Oh, and take good care of the pictures, okay? I’m gonna want those back too._

_~C_

Rifling through the book, she pulls out two photographs. One of them is of them both, laying on their stomachs in a park in San Francisco after Cosima had brought her to meet her parents. It hadn’t been all that long before that Cosima had figured out Delphine’s status within DYAD, and Delphine had been so sure she’d never talk to her again. Yet, she had, and she had wanted her to meet her family.

_To make it normal_ Cosima had said _or, at least as normal as it can be, with like, clones and shit._

 

Delphine agreed, happy just to be able to hold Cosima again, but as soon as their car pulled into the airport, Delphine became so nervous she had to run to the bathroom, afraid that she might puke right on the side of the car park. Cosima followed her diligently, waiting in the bathroom while Delphine heaved

 

_We don’t have to do this. I can call and cancel_

_Non. I want to. Just.. euh… just give me a moment_

So she came out, head hanging low in shame, curls over her face, when Cosima grabbed her hand and kissed it lightly.

 

_They’re going to love you. I promise you babe, you have nothing to worry about._

And of course she didn’t. Mr. and Mrs. Niehaus had been nothing but kind and loving and so much like Cosima it made Delphine’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much. And when the parent lunch was done, Cosima took her to her favorite park, where they lounged in the sun and traced patterns on each others backs and Delphine had, for once in her life, felt so wonderfully complete.

The second photo is just of her, slightly sweaty and wearing nothing but one of Cosima’s sweaters. She’d been utilizing Cosima’s stereo system to blast music she hasn’t listened to since her undergrad. It’s a fleeting moment of youth, but the pulsing base line and lilting lyrics in her mother tongue move through her, and as she twirls around again, she realizes how happy she is.

Then Cosima comes in, early for the first time in her life, and surprises Delphine enough to take a picture before she stops. Delphine had begged her to delete the photo, even went further to promise her an even better, more stimulating one.

 

_No I like this one. Look at how cute you look_

 

_I’m not even in focus!_

_That’s not the point Delphine._

She traces the lines of the photos, running her forefinger over Cosima’s face, before settling down, pulling a piece of paper out, and writing a letter of her own.

* * *

 

 They go on like this for God knows how long. Letters are delivered with groceries, documenting Cosima’s progress and Sarah’s battles and Alison’s woes. They’re light, and Delphine can tell that there are things that the other woman isn’t telling her, but she is so happy to just be getting the letters that she doesn’t say anything.

 

So she tells her about the farmhouse, about how bored she is, how she’s started thinking about teaching herself how to knit. Cosima makes fun of her, and sends an Ipod with the next set of deliveries _I know they took away your phone and computer so this should help._ She spends the next week filtering through the music, laughing at how Cosima has gone so far as to name playlists such as “That French shit you listen to but I don’t get” and “I promise this stuff is good, just listen to it”.

 

She writes a long letter back, thanking Cosima profusely and apologizing for not having anything to send to her. She settles with a pressed flower, grown in the garden out back that has taken up much of her time and pressed in between the pages of _Origin of Species._

 

She signs the letter with je t'aime, and yeah she’s worries she’s upset some boundaries, but she needed Cosima to know.

 

No letter comes after that, and Delphine berates herself for assuming that Cosima wasn’t being anything more than friendly. She wants to pull her skin off, scrape away at herself until there’s nothing left. God she’s a fool.

 

It’s three weeks, the middle of summer, and she gets a scrap of paper the size of a post it tacked to a fresh loaf of bread.

 

_I love you too._

And then there’s nothing, and Delphine doesn’t know how to feel.


	2. Cosima

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 2 of this little piece of work that has been helping me not study for my finals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same stuff as before, still a tired college student. Still not great at french.

* * *

 

 Cosima had lasted a month; a month with thinking Delphine had died, before S told her the truth.

 

It wasn’t like the month was really a month worth living. She hadn’t been able to do anything without breaking down. She’d been held together by thin silver strings of hope that maybe, she and Delphine would work this disastrous relationship out. Because no matter how much time she gave herself to get over Delphine, no matter who she took to bed, every time the woman walked into her lab requesting an update, Cosima felt her world spin away. It was a new layer of hell, and she hated Delphine for putting her there, but she had carried on because when she looked at Delphine and Delphine looked back, she always looked just as miserable as Cosima. Just as heart broken

 

A month, a month of tears and loneliness and flaxen hair covered in blood. She didn’t eat, she didn’t sleep, she didn’t even think. She barely existed.

 

But S, God bless that woman, doesn’t let her sink too low. And Cosima goes from thinking about death to thinking about the way Delphine’s breathe caught in her throat when Cosima kissed the smooth skin between her breathes for the first time.

 

“I need to see her,” she had begged. _Touch her_ she thought, as her fingers subconsciously reached out for a body that wasn’t there. “Please”

“It’s not safe chicken. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you”

“I need…”

“If you go, somebody might follow you and kill you both”

“This…. This is fucking ridiculous. You can’t expect me to not do _anything._ She almost died. I can’t fucking ignore her”

“Chicken, we’re in a war. We can’t always…”

 

Rage bubbles, hot and thick, and pours out of her faster than she expected. Cosima can’t stop it, but she doesn’t all together want to either.

 

“What, take care of people we love? Because it isn’t a problem for Sarah, or Alison and Donnie, or even Paul, but as soon as it’s Delphine, you all turn and act like she’s nothing!"

 

She leaves the lab, the maggot bots, the family she didn’t really ask for, and cries outside in the ally way. Sobs rack through her, splitting her apart. Strong arms wrap around her, holding her shattering pieces together, but all she can think about is golden curls soaked with blood and the overwhelming feeling that she hasn’t done enough

 

“We’ll figure something out love. I promise”

* * *

 

 

The answer, it seemed, was letter writing.

 

S agrees, with stipulations of course, to pass messages to the man dropping off groceries to Delphine. Cosmia isn’t to write anything that will make her come home, nothing that will blow their cover. But she is allowed to write, and try at least to comfort Delphine, so she knows she’s not so alone.

 

_Origin of Species_ with copies of her favorite pictures. She writes a note, scribbles out a note, and writes another. She wants to tell her she loves her, but settles on telling her that she isn’t mad.

 

Shay calls, worries that she hasn’t seen Cosima. Cosima deletes the message halfway through. Shay deserves more than a half focused distraction with a war dancing in her shadow.

 

She’s met with three weeks of silence, and then a letter written on lined paper that smelled slightly of damp wool. Her heart flutters lightly. _Get it together Niehaus_

_Thank you so much for the letter cherie._

_I am looking forward to rereading Origin of Species, though I am surprised you parted with it. I remember, once, you saying that if you had to choose between rescuing anything out of your apartment, that book was first on your list._

_I never wanted this to happen, please believe me. I know you’re getting tired of giving out second chances, but hopefully we soon won’t need anymore._

_Yours~_

_Delphine_

She can sense Delphine’s loneliness and regret from each slanted stroke of her handwriting. So she writes another letter, telling her about everything and nothing. She confesses that she thinks Alison and Donnie are psychopaths, and that Kira sometimes scares her. She talks about how she misses that old coffee shop in Minnesota, and how she had seen Delphine sneak a small amount of sugar in her black coffee when she had thought nobody was looking.

She doesn’t tell her that she thinks she’s dying. She doesn’t tell her about maggot-bots and new clones, and the fact that she had experimented on Leekie’s exhumed head (though she thinks Delphine might have appreciated the irony). She doesn’t tell her about the big things because she can’t, but she really _really_ wants to.

 

Three weeks, and she gets a letter back. It’s several pages long, mixed with English and French, as if Delphine can’t quite figure out what she needs to say.

 

It talks about an old farmhouse with more space that she knows what to do with and how it creaks when the wind blows. There’s the smell of rain and winter wherever she is, and the farm boys who stare at her when they pass once a week in their beaten down trucks. There’s desperation, want, and loneliness there too, hidden between the lines of the text, but Cosima does her best to ignore it. So, she tells Delphine to learn how to make bread, to knit scarves the color of pomegranates, and to read articles ripped out of newspapers she finds at Alison’s. She tells her without really telling her, to not be too lonely.

 

And it goes like this, swapping stories and friendship, and Cosima starts to wonder if this is what a pen pal feels like, just with emotional baggage. She writes back, despite the labs and the babies and the overwhelming threat that they’re not going to win. She tells Delphine she always wonders what her favorite color was, and if it was that shade of blue she always looked so pretty in.

 

She sends her gifts. And in return, Delphine tells her she loves her. Cosima knew this, but it doesn’t mean her heartbeat doesn’t thrum so loudly that she thinks Felix can hear it across the room. She wants to write back, ink the words that have sat on her tongue for too long, but they are pulled deeper into the rabbit hole, and S tells her she simply doesn’t have the time to chase the dream of a lover she was never meant to hold.

 

_You have to love all of us_

_Then I love all of you_

What use had it been, really?

* * *

 

She freckles like crazy under the sun, Cosima learns, as she looks at Delphine unabashed. The white linen top, sleeves rolled at the elbows to abstain from dirt and buttoned low to let her skin breathe show the freckles that dance across the back of her neck; where her skin had once been as pale and unmarked as alabaster.

 

She’s stringing up peas, deft quick fingers meant and trained for pipets and test tubes moving quickly, manipulating the twine and pea bines up sticks placed periodically across the raised bed. The domestic normalcy of it makes Cosima’s mouth go dry. The sun beats down, and Cosima feels a bead of sweet run down the length of her neck, but she is unwilling to break her stare at this smallest moment of upmost tranquility.

 

“Need any help?”

 

Delphine’s head jerks up, stray golden curls flying. Her eyes, larger and greener than Cosima remembers, blink twice.

 

A breath; fragile and crystalline.

 “Cosima”

 

The moment is fleeting, and Cosima barely has time to process anything before lengthily dirt stained fingers are gripping her face, streaking her cheeks. Soft, honest tasting lips crash against her own, and she wonders if this is what heaven and hell taste like.

 

Delphine bends forward, pulling Cosima into her briskly Cosima feels like she might snap, hips being pulled forward to meet long tan legs while back bending and Delphine pushed her tongue into her mouth. But it’s been so god dam long, and she’s missed this, missed _her_ so much. So she wraps her arms around Delphine’s neck, fingers weaving into the hairs and the base of her skull that have fallen from her bun, and refuses to let go.

 

“Glad you missed me” Cosima laughs, punctuating each word with open mouthed kisses along her neck. “ I was worried you’d gone off with some farm boy”

“Non. Never” Delphine’s voice smoother and sweet, accent heavier since coming to her grandfather’s old home. “Not replace… just supplement”

“Brat”

 

Delphine lets out a throaty chuckle, a single tear rolling down her check and sitting in the well of her upper lip. Cosima swipes the pad of her thumb across it, whipping away the sweat, dirt, and salt water, pausing to trace the slight bow of Delphine’s trembling lip.

 

“God. I missed you. Don’t go get shot on me again”

 

She laughs again, Cosima quirking her eyebrow in response.

 

“It’s….uh… your face” she says, nodding to the window pane. Cosima looks, and sure enough, it is streaked with dirt; long brown lines where Delphine’s fingers had been. Cosima feels herself start to swell, chest threatening to break from her ribs.

 

“Oh I’m going to kill you” she threatens before following Delphine past the peas and behind a wall of corn and sunflowers.

* * *

 

Later, as the sun begins to move west, the taller woman wraps the smaller one in her arms, shifting them so Cosima’s head is tucked under her chin. Her shoulder blades and ass press into the dry, cracking earth, and all she can think of is the feeling of breathe across her skin. _She’s here. She came back for you_

The blue sky above them is expansive and uninterrupted. The flowers cast shadows across Cosima’s naked back, and she traces the outlines of them with blunt nails.

 

The small body stirs against her, pink tongue tracing a ling along the top of her breast. Despite the heat, gooseflesh erupts across her chest.

 

“You taste sweaty”

“I have been out in the sun for many house mon amour. And it is very hot”

“Do you want me to move?”

“Non. I do not mind”

“Good. Because you’re much more comfortable then, like, the ground. And I’m having a really hard time stopping myself”

 

Cosima begins working at the skin behind Delphine’s ear, leading a line of light kisses until she is right between Delphine’s breasts. She smiles up at her, impish and oh so beautiful, before sinking her teeth into Delphine’s left breast, deep red blooming beneath sharp teeth.

 

The first time she had Cosima, Delphine had cried because she knew she was so remarkably over her head. Now, with the small, beautiful miracle working her deft fingers against the apex of her thighs, Delphine begins to cry again.

 

“Hey hey hey. Are you okay? Talk to me”

 

There’s so much they need to talk about. But Delphine swallows those fears and kisses Cosima. She no longer tastes like blood and fear. Perhaps, Cosima tastes like hope

 

“I told you. I cry after sex with boys too”

 

A small nose nudges her cheek. Fingers write praises and admittances of love across her lower stomach.

 

“Oh yeah. I forgot. Poor you”


End file.
